Content warning: This testimony addresses childhood sexual abuse.
From age 7 to 13, Alison Green carried a burden no child should ever know. As she so aptly puts it, for 1,500 days, she watched other children play, laugh, and have fun while she was pretending. She was surviving. Today, founder of Bien Chez Soi, Vice-President and co-founder of the Association of Home Care Providers of Quebec, and board member of Marie-Vincent, Alison opens a door to her story through two videos. In the first, she speaks about those years when she carried her burden alone, in silence. In the second, she shares how speaking out changed the course of her life.
« Living through sexual abuse as a child… it’s heavy.
It’s a weight you carry with you, all the time.
I carried it from the age of 7 to 13. Every single day.
1,500 days. 1,500 days watching other kids play, laugh, have fun. 1,500 days pretending… just surviving. 1,500 days holding on… under the weight I carried.
Fear. The fear that it would happen again. The fear that someone might find out.
Silence. The kind we impose on ourselves…
Out of fear of the consequences. Out of fear that no one will believe us.
Guilt. When you start wondering if it’s your fault.
That weight… I carried it for far too long. Alone. A weight far too heavy for such small shoulders.
And I refuse to let other children carry it too.
That’s why organizations like Marie-Vincent exist.
A safe place where young people can finally put that weight down. A place where they are heard and supported.
Where they receive the services they need.
Where thousands of professionals are trained to welcome them, understand them, and take action.
To change things, for the little Alison I once was, and for every child today. It starts with us, as adults.
Let’s lighten the burden carried by young survivors of sexual violence. Together. »
